[Ed- Aurora Feint 1: The Beginning, is FREE in the iTunes store. Aurora Feint 2: The Arena is now available for $7.99 and if you head on over to the forum, and ask Chris and Matt, we might just get a review up for that soon too! Meanwhile, here's Chris' review of the original to whet everyone's appetite!]
This is an extremely interesting game that tries to combine elements of a puzzle game with elements of an RPG game.
You start with a map screen. From there, you can go to the mine (the puzzle game), the store (to use your tiles for skills or tools), the smith (to actually obtain the tools), and the tower (to actually learn the skills). You need to start with the puzzle game, and once you start to gain levels and tile,s you can move to the other areas.
Conor sent us a note about the new game from Redwind Software. They’re coming from a .Net background, and this is their first attempt at Cocoa Touch and the iPhone, and it seems from the video they’re embracing the differences whole heartedly!
Movie Challenge is a trivia/quiz style game at its core, but so much more when examined in detail. Rather than the simple question after question after question, leveling up to meaningless levels that seems to be the norm in most trivia games on the platform we have strived to provide more. There are multiple categories, multiple game types, accelerometer action, touch screen drag and drops, power ups and the list goes on.
If you’re a movie trivia buff and you decide to meet this challenge, let us know how you do!
I love me some crossword puzzles. You can keep your silly Sudoku, I played enough logic games getting my philosophy major from a department that didn’t go for them crazy postmodern language games (seriously, the folks at St. Thomas love them some logic). I love having crosswords on my smartphone because it’s the perfect ‘quick game’ app: you can spend two minutes or twenty on them, there’s many new and free ones available every day, and they fend off cognitive decline in old age (Seriously, speaking of Catholics, look into the “nun study“).
Anyway, point is I want my crossword puzzle app to be awesome. So this week’s App vs. App is crosswords. Today’s contestants: 2 Across (1.2.2) by Eliza Block and Crosswords (1.13) by Stand Alone, Inc. Which one will better serve your word-puzzle fetish? Read on!
Nelson wrote in to tell us a little about WaKi SNAP!, a new game now available in the iTunes App Store:
WaKi SNAP! was created as our first project for the iPhone and we wanted to create something that used the touch capabilities of the iPhone in an innovative and immersive way…basically, something that allows two players to both enjoy the game on the one phone at the same time, which is different to the majority of the games out there.
We wanted to make something that was fun, simple to play, and almost universally known by both children and adults. The challenge was also to keep the interface as clean and minimalist as possible so that there was little clutter and the main focus was on displaying the graphics of the cards in as large a size as possible. Thus, WaKi SNAP! was born!
If you check it out, be sure to let us know what you think!
Fans of the classic card game, Uno, rejoice… the game is now for sale in the App Store! Gameloft brings us Uno in all of it’s glory along with a multiplayer mode! (Online via 3G or WiFi)
Play the classic card game that’s #1 for fun with friends and family. In single or multiplayer, playing UNO has never been so fun and easy, thanks to a brand new gameplay system! Simply drag & drop cards using your finger on the screen for intuitive control, and be the first to get rid of all your cards.
All your favorite Action Cards are here: Wild, Reverse, Draw 2 and more! Customize your game with 9 different rules including 7-0 and Jump-in. Play against the AI or your friends: use only one iPhone or play with multiple devices through a WiFi connection. Take on increasingly hard challenges in Tournament Mode.
All of this Uno action can be yours for the fair price of $7.99. Feeling lucky and want to challenge me to a game? Head on into the iTunes App Store and get your game on!
Mark wrote in to tell us about Arcade Hoops, and was gracious enough to share some great info:
I think one interesting thing about the game is its back story. It was developed by Garry Kitchen and David Crane. David was a co-founder of Activision and Garry co-founded Absolute Entertainment. These guys worked together on some famous old school games like Donkey Kong for Atari, Pitfall and Decathlon.
They’ve decided to put these skills to work in a very new medium, and I hope you’ll be impressed with the results.
The other story is the quality of the game and the intensity of the game play. You can look at virtually any review online, either on the iTunes site or off- they are all glowing. People are really amazed that this game is available for $1.99. I think it’s because of the soundtrack, the 3D imagery, and the speed of the game play – plus some extra touches like a trash-talking jumbotron.
Developer Gonzalo Oxenford wrote in to let us know the story behind Truco, a South American card game for the iPhone. These are the types of developers that make us so excited about the future of the platform!
Since we decided to start making iPhone Apps, we realized that we had to take a lot of care in the interface design, and graphic arts. We think this new platform is an amazing approach to virtual reality, and that’s what we’ve been doing while designing Truco.
If you take a look at the card games now at the App store, you will see that not even the one made by Apple takes care of that. The wood textures, the card size, the beauty of the cards. All other card games have so small cards, that makes you think you are playing an 8 bit game. And you are not supposed to, since these games are running inside of one of the most advanced mobile OS on Earth.
It’s very important for the user to feel the cards, to move them. Cards must be big enough so you can appreciate the beautiful illustrations on them. And this is what the real Truco player loves.
Other interesting aspect of the game is the AI (artificial intelligence) it has. The game of Truco is actually played by tricking your opponent. The AI we developed can make things like raising the stakes and bluffing which can put pressure on you, and might cause you to fold. So we let the user to choose the computer skill level, making it easier or harder to play…
Truco can also be played in multiplayer mode via Wi-Fi. It takes advantage of Bonjour, Apple’s technology that lets two devices communicate in a local network with zero configuration. Truco just sees other Truco installed in your friend’s iPhone and they arrange a multiplayer game automatically, it’s so beautiful how it works.
Odasoft is a 3 people company. Tons of years playing video games have help us a lot. We work at our homes during our free time. We are Mac users and nerds. And we just invested our small tiny savings on this project. We love what we do, and that’s the key that let us wake up sunday mornings at 7 AM to start working on this, while most people keep sleeping…
The realtechVR team has released their first iPhone game, Laserlink:
Become the Master of the lasers with LaserLink, and recover every diamonds in each level. Create junctions to allow generating a laser between two points of connection of color in order to recover the diamonds ones.
If you’re interested in puzzlers, let us know what you think!
Back in September, TiPb posted a few articles in regards to Apple becoming a major player in the hand held gaming wars. We faced off the iPhone against Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS.
The main question to be answered is should Sony and Nintendo be worried? I’d say yes, indeed they should be worried. Business Week seems to feel the same way as well. Some of their points are right on key with what we had to say back in September (see the articles linked above). While that is no doubt a coincidence, here is what they had to say:
Now look at Apple’s advantages over competitors. Apple already has more titles for its games than both of the other two combined. And aside from the free ones, games on the App Store sell at prices ranging up to $9.99 and sometimes a little more. Compare that with the $20 to $40 for Nintendo DS games and the $10 to $40 for games on the PSP.
This goes along with exactly what we said, doesn’t it? How about this one?
And with Apple selling via iTunes, there are no costs associated with the distribution of physical media. All games are downloaded directly to the device. And in the event the game is buggy, the developer can easily issue an easy-to-download fix. The developer gets 70% of the sale and Apple keeps 30%, with no one else to get in the middle. Nintendo and Sony partners have to worry about shelf space at stores, shipping, returns, defective merchandise, and even the occasional shoplifter.
Also a good point that we stressed a few months back. With the holiday season fast approaching, it should be mighty interesting to see just how the hand held gaming wars works out.
For more gaming coverage from TiPb be sure to check out these articles.
Bottle Rocket sent us word of two new App Store releases, Proxy Pal ($1.99) and Wings ($0.99). One lets you glide over virtual scene-scapes, the other might just help people outside the US actually access Hulu! (Purty please?)
Wings brings the fun, excitement and relaxation of flying to everyone, not just pilots. Wings’ flight visualizer and virtual worlds have the most beautiful terrains and environments available on the iPhone. Tailor your flying to have fun or just relax and enjoy the scenery. Play your own music from your iPhone or choose one of the built-in tracks. Go searching for distant valleys or the endless river. Do barrel rolls and spins or keep it simple and just float along. Make Wings your own personal flying escape. This is a fun and entertaining time-passer for anyone and is 100% safe for kids. Both relaxing and fun, Wings is the best way to get away.
Proxy Pal provides working proxy server sites so that you can always access your go-to pages. New proxies are added weekly and automatically updated when you launch Proxy Pal. Works worldwide in any country so stop surfing on your Edge/3G network when you’re right in front of a computer that blocks your favorite site. Use Proxy Pal and get back on that high-speed connection. Mark your favorite proxies as “best pals” to use on Facebook, MySpace, eBay, Google, Craigslist, YouTube, ESPN, CNN, LinkedIn, Hotmail or any other web site. Never be caught again on a computer at work, the library or school without a proxy that works.
